*As you can see by my level, I’m no level 60, but around 10-15 levels ago I decided that I’d go as far as level 50 before retiring from service to the crabigator. Then I saw on WK Stats that the last N2 kanji are taught in level 51, so I just had to stretch as far as that too…
In any case, I thought I’d share my experiences, in lieu of a true level 60 post.
About me: Japanese is the only foreign language I’ve studied to any significant degree. I moved to Japan in Sept 2019 on a scholarship programme, and studied Japanese full-time for one year upon arrival. Since then I’ve been working here, in an all-Japanese office, for just over 2.5 years (though due to the nature of my work there is also a lot of written English). I passed the N2 exam in Dec 2020, and I’m taking the N1 in July of this year.
WK has been the best study tool for Japanese I’ve used. Of course, it’s not enough on its own, but good kanji knowledge is the backbone of good reading comprehension and so it’s really been a cornerstone of my studying. Around level 20 I felt I “broke into” reading Japanese, where I’d be able to broadly grasp signs and advertisements; around level 30 I felt able to read manga and play games so long as I had a dictionary on hand; and around level 50 I finished my first novel (コンビニ人間). I’ve recently started my second (大事なことほど小声でささやく). Sure, some of WK’s example sentences are questionable, and some of the later pneumonics are abstract to the point of ridicule. But it works, and it’s a well known fact that cringe-inducing material is directly proportional to its encouragement value.
Unrelated to WaniKani, the three other major players in my Japanese study have been 1) the “Shadowing: Let’s Speak Japanese!” textbooks, which were vital for giving me daily phrases and confidence in conversations at the beginner/intermediate stage; 2) podcasts - I listened to Nihongo con Teppei for a good year when I was starting out, and I now listen to The Lifestyle Museum every week; and 3) language exchange partners - I cannot stress enough how vital actually using your Japanese is, for both improvement and motivation to study more!
Of course there’s still loads of vocabulary / grammar structures that I don’t know, and while I can hold conversations with friends and colleagues I’d be hard-pressed to call my spoken Japanese “good”. This is the main reason I’m moving away from WK: kanji is no longer my bottleneck, and I want to focus more on natural language study, i.e. immersion and vocabulary building. In prep for the N1 exam I’m using Anki already to crunch vocab, and I’m trying get into a routine of consuming native Japanese media (novels, TV dramas and podcasts) to continue to improve comprehension.
To offer a final cliche, learning Japanese really is a marathon and not a sprint. I have by no means been the most efficient student, as you can see below - but even when I stayed on the same level for a ludicrous amount of time, I did reviews at least every few days. Whenever I’ve tried to blitz anything, my retention has been far lower than low-intensity repetition over a longer period.
Thanks to the WaniKani team for this excellent resource, and thanks to the users - especially Kumirei - for their userscripts that make the whole experience so much more streamlined. And to anyone who needs to hear it - remember, you don’t have to be perfect, you just have to keep going. You can do this!
